Opinion: Gun Control Emotions vs. Gun Control Facts

shadowrider

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Sat Jan-29-11 10:54 AM
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Opinion: Gun Control Emotions vs. Gun Control Facts

ust 24 hours after the shooting in Tucson, politicians were calling for more gun control. And the drumbeat has continued.

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But while the emotional reaction to a mass shooting is understandable, the fact is that some of the proposals would at best only make people feel better and at worst make them less safe.

Schumer's proposal, for example, would try to pick up criminal activities included in military applications for which there are no criminal convictions. But the military has a good reason to maintain confidentiality when it interviews new recruits: It wants to get the most honest answers it can.

With Schumer's proposed change, new recruits would be more reluctant to tell the military that they'd been smoking marijuana, for example, knowing that any answers they gave could haunt them the rest of their lives, with serious consequences such as being banned for life from being able to own a gun.

--snip--

Indeed, the evidence shows that the only people inconvenienced by the Brady Act background checks for gun purchases -- which have been in place since 1994 -- are law-abiding citizens. In fact, over 99.9 percent of those purchases initially flagged as being illegal under the law were later determined to be misidentified.

--snip--

Given this, it's not surprising that no academic studies by economists or criminologists have found that the Brady Act or other state background checks have reduced violent crime.

Just as futile would be reinstituting the parts of the assault weapons ban limiting magazine size. No research by criminologists or economists has found that the either the assault weapons ban or the magazine-size restrictions reduce crime. This is not surprising, as magazines are simply small metal boxes with a spring and are thus very easy to make. Besides, someone planning to harm a large number of people can easily bring two or more loaded guns.

--snip--

Clearly, criminals don't obey gun-free zones. And, likewise, they do not respect gun bans, as was seen in the increased murder rates in Chicago and Washington, D.C., following their handgun bans. The recent 36 percent drop in murder rates in D.C. right after the Supreme Court struck down its gunlock and handgun ban laws provides even more evidence.

Supporters blame those gun ban failures on the ease of getting guns in the rest of the country. They claim that unless the ban covers the entire country, it isn't a fair test of how well a ban will work. Still, that doesn't explain why gun bans actually increase, rather than decrease, murder rates.

--snip--

Yes, mentally unstable people and violent criminals ought not to possess guns. But the new laws being offered will create more problems than solutions.

http://www.aolnews.com/2011/01/20/opinion-gun-control-emotions-vs-gun-control-facts/